I came across this the other day on a blog somewhere and thought it was a great example of clever interactive marketing: It seems Charmin has become the “sponsor” of a little site called sitorsquat.com. Essentially, this site (which has existed in some form since ’07) uses Google maps to locate the closest public restroom to an address entered by a user.

Now, thanks to Charmin, users can download free mobile applications for iPhones and BlackBerrys that use GPS to show you the way to the nearest public pit stop. Not only will you get location, Sit or Squat also lets users rate each restroom based on ick-factor (an average rating above 2.5 is “sit,” below “squat”) so you can avoid less than stellar accommodations (if you have the luxury of being picky).

Being a toilet paper company, this is obviously a great fit for Charmin, and it’s getting them a lot of buzz on blogs and other traditional media outlets-which is the point, of course. What’s so interesting about it though, is that Sit or Squat was a pre-existing site – the lesson being that you don’t necessarily need to be a corporate giant for a good, common-sense interactive site or application to pay off. Certainly, Charmin’s saving some cash by avoiding the cost of custom application development and Sit or Squat now has a corporate sponsor to finance their brainchild and tell the world about it. It’s a win-win.

Okay, so that’s just my overly-snide first-take on this article about iPhone apps.

My second take is that I can’t decide whether this is a positive commentary on iPhone users (i.e. they know useless crap once they’ve seen it and never look back), or a somewhat less flattering one (they have an endless and apparently purposeless appetite for the latest gimicky digital froth).

I dunno. You guys tell me what you think.

Full disclosure: The device in my pocket was purchased when you still called them “cell phones” and they all had hinges in the middle, so this post might just be my pent-up gadget-envy lashing out at my luddite wallet.

So we’ve all heard by now that Google is finished trying to save the newspapers, but others haven’t given up hope. Time Magazine published an article claiming that micropayments was the solution – Charging small fees such as a nickel for a day’s edition of the newspaper, or a larger (maybe $2) fee for a month’s worth of access. Critics argue, and I have to agree, that this model has failed in the past and will fail again. 

However, a “new” idea has been thrown on the table recently - Instead of making users pay for content, what if you asked them for donations if they like the content? Okay, so the idea isn’t new, National Public Radio has been doing it successfully for decades, but it’s something the newspapers have not tried online yet. Or at least not to my knowledge, please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Start up venture Kachingle (in private beta) has a solution that some feel could help bring this model to fruition.  From a high level, the Kachingle model works like this: 

• A user creates a Kachingle account, and you determine a monthly fee of what you are willing to donate to support good content. This could be $1, it could be $50, whatever you feel good content is worth.
• You sign in once per device – PC, laptop, phone, etc and Kachingle remembers you from that point on.
• Publishers who are part of the Kachingle network place a little Kachingle medallion on thier site
• When you are visiting a blog, online newspaper, etc that you like, you click on their Kachingle medallion which notifies Kachingle that you’d like some of your monthly fee to go to that site.
• Kachingle measures your usage across sites you’ve tagged to receive money, and allocates your donations accordingly. So for example, if you are willing to donate $5 a month to good news content on the web, and 50% of your usage goes to WSJ.com, then Kachingle would give $2.50 to WSJ.com that month. The remaining $2.50 would be split up amongst the other sites you “kachingled” (not sure if that is a real term yet) based on your usage of their sites.

So the real question becomes, is the problem with the paid news model the lack of choice? Will people not pay for online content when they are required to pay for it, but change their mind if they are given the choice to contribute based on their own assesement of the content’s value?

Things aren’t looking good for newspapers. Despite making a valiant (or ironic?) effort to save the newspapers, this week Google announced that it will discontinue the Google Print Ads program on February 28th, 2009, allowing advertisers who have already purchased ad space to see their ads run through March 31st. 

Spencer Spinnell, Director of Google Print Ads comments in the blog post announcement, “While we hoped that Print Ads would create a new revenue stream for newspapers and produce more relevant advertising for consumers, the product has not created the impact that we — or our partners — wanted.”

The program was designed to allow the hundreds of thousands of Google Adwords advertisers to conveniently buy excess ad inventory from daily newspapers, in theory giving the newspapers a big revenue boost. Ironically, the newspapers are desperately in need of a revenue boost because most of their advertisers have moved thier ad dollars online, realizing that their newspaper ads were less effective than their online ads. So really, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why this program failed.

Will they bailout the newspapers and just buy them? According to a Fortune magazine interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, no:

“The good news is we could purchase them. We have the cash. But I don’t think our purchasing a newspaper would solve the business problems. It would help solidify the ownership structure, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem in the business.”

Well folks, at least we know they could do it, if they wanted to.  And as usual, there is a funnier version of this story at Valleywag.

Yahoo search advertisers be warned. The Yahoo TOS states that Yahoo can create ads, add, edit or delete keywords, and “optimize” your account as they see fit at any time, without your consent. Um, we would hope they would only do this in the advertisers best interest, but WOW. Don’t expect the Yahoo bashing to stop anytime soon…

Google has recently made some big claims about how Google Checkout impacts clickthrough rates on Adwords ads and overall conversion rates.  Google claims that conversion rates can increase by 40% (!) and click through rates on Adwords ads can increase by 10% for merchants who offers Google Checkout. For those who haven’t noticed, merchants who offer Google checkout get enhanced Google Checkout ads when they advertise with Google.

Of course, there is a catch to those claims. Those amazing CTR and conversion numbers are for “Google Checkout users” not for every person who sees your ad. Still, those numbera are impressive, and merchants who are looking for new ways to increase conversion rates may want to give Google Checkout some consideration.

I’ve got two kids, and while they’re not quite Facebooking it just yet, I’m sure they will be soon enough. CNN recently had an article about teenage usage of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Nothing most of us don’t know, but they make one point that I rather liked:

Beyond keeping a watchful eye on risky interests and pictures, parents should also use social networking sites such as MySpace — which had about 120 million users as of this summer — as an opportunity to learn about their childrens’ favorite movies and hobbies, as well as their top friends, she said.

“You so often hear parents say ‘I don’t even know my kid anymore.’ Here’s a very easy tool to get to know your kid again,” she said.

Here’s the whole article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/05/myspace.teens/index.html

Burger King has captured the flame broiled essence of a Whopper and put it into a cologne for men. And of course they have a hilarious website to go with it. Genius. I can’t wait to see how Hardee’s answers. And PETA for that matter.

 More at their “Fire Meets Desire” website and a Yahoo Shopping article here. Too bad they are already sold out for the holidays, that would have been a great “white elephant” gift.

Microsoft revealed a study today that offered some insight into SMB paid search marketing behavior, and more importantly, their thoughts on the topic. The study showed that most SMBs still struggle to understand paid search engine marketing, and many had fears about price, ROI and time commitment. Some key findings:

• Nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) feared keywords may become too expensive.
• Eighty-one percent questioned if paid search marketing is the best use of their marketing budgets.
• One quarter of respondents believe paid search marketing is too complex.
• Twenty-one percent thought it would be too time-consuming.
• Thirty-five percent felt they would need an agency to help set up a search marketing campaign.

So in more “Google is getting greedy with ads” news, Google appears to be testing running ads in Google Search Suggest. Only select users will see this update while they test it out, but here is a screen grab from Search Engine Land:

From an advertiser and a user perspective, I’m not happy with this change. Usually Google strives to make changes that benefit users and contribute to thier financial success. However, this just looks like pure greed to me. It’s way too easy for a user to accidentally click on an ad that hovers right below the search box, creating not only user frustration, but a potential wasted click for the advertiser.